And again he began to teach by the sea side; and a great multitude was gathered together unto him, so that he went up into a ship and sat in the sea: and all the multitude was upon the land by the sea side.

The crowd was so large that the Lord had to get into a boat. They let it out on a line a distance from the shore so that more people could hear what he had to say as they lined up along the sea.

So… this was an effort of the Lord in mass communication.

Christ used the technology of the boat and the rope to preach to more people.

34 Responses to A favorite verse caught in stained glass

I won’t pretend to guess, since these windows are very familiar to me, and maybe someone will figure it out from the picture. For those who have never visited, the length of the nave has windows illustrating Bible verses that deal with the sea, with sailors, or with boats. The apse has the magnificent Tiffany window of Christ walking on the water Father Z posted earlier.

I’m going with Luke 5:3 — He [Jesus] got into one of the boats — it was Simon’s — and asked him to put out a little from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. (New Jerusalem Bible translation)

I note that Fr. Z’s blog is “powered by Luke 5:1-11″, so it being his favorite presumedly is related to his call from Christ.

I think the reason why it’s your favorite is because the Extraordinary Form has an ocean of Tradition and treasures. Ecclesia Dei is seen as preaching from that ocean to the masses that celebrate the Ordinary Form. Since both forms are of equal weight, it is only fitting that the ocean washes up to the shore, so that the ocean affects the land, and the land affects the ocean. The same is true for both forms, the EF affects the OF, and vice versa!

Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!” The wind ceased and there was great calm. Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” They were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?”

In the picture Jesus’ hands could be interpreted as rebuking the wind and the sea. The disciples also appear to be looking at one another and at him and asking “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?”

I’m going to guess it is the calming of the sea. Remember the Navy Hymn —
Eternal Father, strong to save
Whose arm doth bind the restless wave
Who bidst the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limit keep
O hear us when we call to Thee
For those in peril on the sea.

It seems to me like our Lord in Luke 5:1-11. Obviously it is that scene. But I wonder why the disciples (not just the twelve) are depicted kneeling, with veiled arms. The red background and the gestures of the disciples remind me of paintings of the descendence of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. It may well be that the artist combines the two events in one glas painting. The warm red “flames”, the “oriens ex alto” covers (or frames – my English isn’t sufficient) the Lord’s figure, the boat and the disciples.

Clearly it is a depiction of the Ascension, with the blue sky artistically reinterpreted as blue water, and the cloud portrayed as a boat. This accounts for the Eleven (plus Mathias, not yet one of the Twelve) being present, but not a broader sampling of disciples. See http://orthodoxwiki.org/Ascension_icon for a more traditional representation.

If that’s Jesus preaching from a boat on the water, and those people are “under” the water, then I’m guessing it’s 1 Peter 3:18-21, where Jesus, after his death, preached in his Spirit in the abode of the dead to those who were formerly disobedient during the time of Noah, thus the ark-and-flood imagery…

First of all, the first comment explained that these windows all relate to the sea, which the Ascension doesn’t.

Also, there are a few key elements that are almost always present in depictions of the Ascension which are not present. The Blessed Mother, The 12 apostles, (not 18, not 11), The hands, feet and side are often arranged to display the stigmata clearly. The Lord is blessing, and gesturing. In the Ascension his hands are usually out to the sides…Also the notion of the boat is not used in reference to the Ascension in any historical art that I know of. Another element missing, are the angels carrying him up to heaven. Usually shown, or using a cloud or other means of indicating heavenly journey. This is how the division between Heaven and earth is usually divided. There would be rocks showing, or earthy type things, and a cloud, angels or some other heavenly indications.

I would guess that this is indeed a depiction of the verse suggested earlier. By the apparent lack of stigmata, we can deduce that this is before the Crucifixion. There is also 18 people shown, and so this indicates more than the apostles who are numbered 12. There is a boat, and Jesus’s hands are arranged in the traditional “teaching” pose used by artists since the earliest of times.

Also, under the people kneeling is what could be loaves of bread and fishes…It would be easier to identify if it was a more detailed picture.

I think it is Father’s favorite picture, because it is when Simon Peter, a “great sinner” was forgiven, and made into a “fisher of men”. This man, a sinner became our first Pope, and then a Saint…It shows God’s infinite mercy and divine plan. Plus as other posters suggested, Father is indeed a fisher of men himself…

It could also be the calming of the sea, but this would be a highly odd representation of that historically….

“Clearly it is a depiction of the Ascension, with the blue sky artistically reinterpreted as blue water, and the cloud portrayed as a boat. This accounts for the Eleven (plus Mathias, not yet one of the Twelve) being present, but not a broader sampling of disciples.”

)(

It isn’t the Ascension. Jesus didn’t take off from a boat. Since no one’s in the boat with Him, it’s not the calming of the storm, so I like the rendering of the fisher of men. The window is not a play-by-play rendering of the passage it’s representing anyway, so it’s interesting what Father Z’s take on it is. Hopefully he’ll let us know. :)

If you want to see some of the other windows, there are more pictures at the following link (and if you click on each pic you’ll get an enlargement)– but DON’T go there if you still want to try guessing the verse that is illustrated, it’ll give it away! Of course, you’ll still be able to speculate on why it’s one of Fr Z’s favorites.

I’m tempted to say that sure, He left in a flying saucer. You can certainly find web sites that will make that (or any other) ludicrous claim! But I don’t want to be struck dead, so I will resist the temptation.

Or I could say that this was not Christ, but King Arthur leaving for the Isle of Avalon, and you are mistaking his crown for Christ’s cruciform halo. The kneeling figures would be his distraught faithful knights.

But I have clearly indicated that this was a joke! Even in the original posting, which ended with “Ask a silly question, get a silly answer”!

I see Jesus emerging from the mouth of a large fish: “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Sorry, Allena (and Fr. Z), but I thought it was pretty obvious that the window represented exactly what Fr. Z said, Jesus preaching from the boat, so to keep it interesting we might as well play the game of academic over-interpretation which is so popular in some quarters. (Just don’t ever take it seriously!)

Of course, the most interesting cases of misinterpretation come from a little knowledge, a weird outlook on life, and a vast ignorance of Christian tradition. As one example, I came across a web site once that told a (supposedly true) story in which an American family living in Germany found “creepy crucifixes with SS Death-Heads at the bottom” in the attic. Almost certainly this was not the SS Death-Head, but the skull of Adam (http://www.aquinasandmore.com/images/items/13101lg.jpg), since tradition has it that Golgotha is where the first Adam was buried. Or for another, more outrageous example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=6704947. Hopefully, readers will have no trouble seeing what this *truly* represents, but if you’re stuck, here’s a version with English subtitles: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1154/1023753594_c685fd5bc3.jpg?v=0.

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